Nir Eyalhttp://www.businessinsider.com/category/nir-eyal
en-usTue, 31 Mar 2015 18:54:12 -0400Tue, 31 Mar 2015 18:54:12 -0400The latest news on Nir Eyal from Business Insiderhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/nir-eyals-morning-routine-2015-3A habit expert shares his morning-routine tricks for extreme productivityhttp://www.businessinsider.com/nir-eyals-morning-routine-2015-3
Wed, 25 Mar 2015 12:40:00 -0400Nir Eyal
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><em><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5511c2806bb3f7f914cb70b8-600-/nir-eyal-workshop-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Nir Eyal Workshop" width="600">Nir Eyal is the best-selling author of "</em></span><span class="s2"><em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products-ebook/dp/B00HJ4A43S">Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products</a>."</em></span><span class="s1"><em>&nbsp;He blogs about the psychology of products at </em></span><a href="http://www.nirandfar.com/"><span class="s2"><em>NirAndFar.com</em></span></a><span class="s1"><em>.</em></span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1">Following a routine offloads decision-making and helps me stay focused on what’s important. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1">I’ve learned through personal experimentation that sticking to a morning routine improves the work I do and the life I live.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1">Here’s what my typical morning looks like:</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1"><strong>10:00 p.m.</strong>&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">My morning routine starts the night before. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">I’ve programmed a special timer to automatically shut off my internet connection every weeknight at 10 p.m. Since I wrote a </span><a href="http://www.nirandfar.com/gethook"><span class="s3">book on habit-forming technology</span></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, I’m well aware of how persuasive our gadgets can be.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1">Without the timer to help me stop, I’d just keep surfing the web. Programmatically turning the internet off ensures that I get to bed and gives me <a href="http://www.nirandfar.com/2012/05/strange-sex-habits-of-silicon-valley.html"><span class="s3">some extra time with my wife</span></a>. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1">I also make sure to charge my cell phone outside the bedroom to remove unwanted triggers.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1"><strong>6:30 a.m.</strong>&nbsp;I wake up and start cooking breakfast for my family. I listen to the NPR news app while I make my first cup of coffee and a protein-rich meal.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1"><strong>7:30 a.m.</strong>&nbsp;Breakfast is cleaned up and it’s time to write. I find my most productive writing time is first thing in the morning. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1">When I’m seated at my desk, the first thing I do is click on a simple and effective app called Freedom, which turns off access to the web for a set period of time. I set it for 120 minutes of freedom from distraction. I also use a writing program called Scrivener in full-screen mode so it’s just me and the words.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1"><strong>8:30 a.m.</strong> I take a stretch break and make another cup of coffee.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1"><strong>8:45 a.m.</strong> Time for another writing session. Still no internet access. I’ve learned that if I start checking email early on, it’ll suck me in for the rest of the morning.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1"><strong>9:30 a.m.</strong> By this point my brain needs a break, and I either go to the gym or run along the Embarcadero here in San Francisco.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1"><strong>10:30 a.m.</strong> Shower, shave, and dress.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1"><strong>10:45 a.m.</strong> Meditate for 10 to 15 minutes.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1"><strong>11:00 a.m.</strong> Finally, I get to check email! This is also when I research topics related to what I wrote about earlier in the day.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1"><strong>12:00 p.m.</strong> Lunch with a friend or my family.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1">That’s my morning! The rest of the day is spent consulting, taking phone calls, emailing, or spending time with my daughter. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1">Of course, there are exceptions, and when I’m not at home — on a business trip for example — my morning routine goes out the window. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1">Writing and exercising are my two priorities for the morning, and I try not to let anything get in the way of my pre-noon routine when I’m at home.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1"><em><em><em><strong>The Success Series</strong>&nbsp;is a collection of the best advice from some of our favorite writers, thinkers, and leaders. This week, we asked: "What is your morning routine?" See other articles in the series&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/the-success-series">here</a>.</em></em></em></span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-creator-of-dilberts-morning-routine-2015-3" >The creator of Dilbert has figured out how to trick himself into creativity</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nir-eyals-morning-routine-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/why-your-habits-wont-last-2014-7Here's The Real Reason Your Habits Won't Last http://www.businessinsider.com/why-your-habits-wont-last-2014-7
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 10:56:54 -0400Max Ogles
<p><strong><em><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/53dab4e4ecad047d117542fb-480-/no-clock-gifts-1.jpg" border="0" alt="No clock gifts" width="480" />Nir&rsquo;s Note:</em></strong><em>&nbsp;This guest post is written by Max Ogles. Max writes at&nbsp;</em><a href="http://bit.ly/1oJ1fAN" target="_blank"><em>MaxOgles.com</em></a><em>&nbsp;about behavior change, psychology, and technology.&nbsp;</em><a href="http://bit.ly/1ztajgQ" target="_blank"><em>Sign up for a free copy</em></a><em>&nbsp;of his upcoming e &mdash; book, "9 Ways to Motivate Yourself Using Psychology and Technology."</em></p>
<p>A commonly quoted and incredibly scary stat reveals that&nbsp;<a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/52717/change-or-die">9 out of 10 people</a>&nbsp;who undergo heart bypass surgeries as a result of poor health are unable to change their habits, even with their lives on the line.</p>
<p>We&rsquo;ve all failed at something, though luckily most of us don&rsquo;t face death as a consequence. Here&rsquo;s a short list of some of the habits I started, only to eventually fail:</p>
<ul>
<li>For two months, I went running 3 to 4 times each week. (I even ran a half marathon!) Then I quit running and didn&rsquo;t run again for over a year.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>I decided to improve my reading speed and comprehension. I read every day, practicing with a course called Breakthrough Rapid Reading. I quit after the first month.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>I finally created a habit of waking up early. For three months, I woke up at 5:30 AM every day. Sleep debt and laziness caught up with me&ndash;now it&rsquo;s hard to get up before 7:30.</li>
</ul>
<p>Thankfully, these failures didn&rsquo;t have any significant consequences attached to them. My life would be slightly better if I had kept them up, but even without them I can be pretty happy and content.</p>
<p>But the thing that bothers me is that each time I felt that these were habits, firmly in place; I had done them consistently for fairly long periods of time before I failed. I had mastered self control, exercised willpower, and shaped my life with these new productive routines, but each time the final outcome was a miserable regression back to the status quo.</p>
<h2>The #1 Reason</h2>
<p>So what the heck happened?! The reason these habits failed for me, and the number one reason people give up on good habits generally is that they<em>&nbsp;just aren&rsquo;t enjoyable.</em></p>
<p>It&rsquo;s a simple truth: you are less likely to continue doing something that you do not enjoy. Here&rsquo;s some proof.</p>
<p><a href="http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-04-goals-pursue-burnout.html">Earlier this year</a>, researchers completed a simple study about work "burnout." First, they asked 154 undergrads to complete a series of word puzzles. Depending on your personality, "word puzzles" might sound like the 10th circle of hell, or maybe it works you up into a giddy, border &mdash; line embarrassing excitement. The researchers accounted for this by asking students, "How enjoyable do you think this task will be?" then they set them to work on the puzzles.</p>
<p>The results were impressive: the students who enjoyed working on puzzles performed the best when solving them. To make things even more interesting, researchers asked students to complete a simple task after working on the puzzles. The students had to squeeze a "grip exerciser," the spring &mdash; loaded contraption used to strengthen your hand. Researchers then proved that the students who enjoyed completing the puzzles were also less fatigued, and were able to squeeze the grip for a longer period of time.</p>
<p>Regarding the experiment, researcher&nbsp;<a href="http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-04-goals-pursue-burnout.html">Paul O&rsquo;Keefe said</a>, "Engaging in personally interesting activities not only improves performance, but also creates an energized experience that allows people&nbsp;<strong><em>to persist when persisting would otherwise cause them to burn out</em></strong>."</p>
<p>(This research has some limitations, namely that it was for a short term assignment rather than habit formation over time. I did find two other research studies that confirm a direct correlation between enjoyment and adherence to a habit. Find them&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12683738">here</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2006_JSS.pdf">here</a>.)</p>
<h2>That Makes Sense, But So What?</h2>
<p>If you enjoy doing something, naturally you&rsquo;ll be more likely to do it. This is practically common sense. But let&rsquo;s say I&rsquo;m trying to create a new habit, like running daily, and it&rsquo;s really not something that I innately enjoy. How will I get myself to run every morning? I&rsquo;ll convince myself that it doesn&rsquo;t matter if I enjoy it, because I have the willpower to achieve anything (cue superhero music). I&rsquo;ll gut it out, forcing myself to run with the "no pain, no gain" mantra, enduring agony as I run each day. And that&rsquo;s a mistake.</p>
<p>In a another&nbsp;<a href="http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/beware_the_sirens_song/">study, this one at Northwestern University</a>, researchers administered a "willpower test" to a group of heavy smokers. In reality, it wasn&rsquo;t a willpower test at all, just mindless word associations in a quiz, but at the end the participants received a score indicating that they had either high or low "impulse control." In other words, after taking this meaningless test, some of the smokers were told that they had high willpower and others were told that they had low willpower.</p>
<p>In the second part of the experiment, all of the smokers watched the movie&nbsp;<em>Coffee and Cigarettes</em>, and they were offered rewards to refrain from smoking. In this scenario, researchers found that the group that believed they had "high impulse control" was actually&nbsp;<strong><em>more likely to give in to the temptation of smoking!</em></strong></p>
<p>Remember, neither group actually had higher willpower&ndash;random assignment made it so that the groups were relatively the same. But one group&nbsp;<em>thought&nbsp;</em>that they had higher willpower, and that led to them overestimating their abilities. As soon as we begin to rely too much on willpower and overestimate our self control, that&rsquo;s when we&rsquo;re most vulnerable to fail.</p>
<h2>Convert to Enjoyable</h2>
<p>The same pattern held true for each of my failed behaviors. For example, I worked for months to adjust to waking up early, always forcing myself out of bed even though I hated it. I reached the point where I thought I had mastered it, and that&rsquo;s the point when I failed.</p>
<p>Eventually I read an article from accomplished personal development blogger Steve Pavlina, entitled, "<a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/10/how-to-wake-up-feeling-totally-alert/">How to Wake Up Feeling Totally Alert</a>." Steve&rsquo;s premise is that if you feel terrible when you wake up and have to work extra hard to get out of bed in the morning, you&rsquo;re doing it wrong. Waking up early should be something that you enjoy and look forward to. If you teach yourself to&nbsp;<strong><em>enjoy the habit</em></strong>, you won&rsquo;t even need to rely on willpower because you&rsquo;ll be excited to do it.</p>
<p>The more I thought about my failed habits, the more I realized that I really didn&rsquo;t&nbsp;<em>enjoy&nbsp;</em>any of them; I did them to be productive and often felt good afterwards, but initiating the process was always painful. As I diagnosed my failed habits, I came up with this matrix:</p>
<p><a href="http://nireyal.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Screenshot-2014-07-15-10.31.03.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1252" src="http://nireyal.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Screenshot-2014-07-15-10.31.03.png" border="0" alt="Habit Success Matrix" width="544" height="430" /></a></p>
<p>During the months that I woke up early, I had the habit of waking up, but didn&rsquo;t enjoy it; every day was painful. I was stuck in the top left quadrant of the Habit Success Matrix, which made the behavior "difficult to maintain." If I had found a way to make it enjoyable, I could have moved to the sweet spot, the top right quadrant, and the behaevior would have been easy to maintain.</p>
<p>Instead, my willpower and desire slowly drained until I eventually gave up.</p>
<p>The moral of this story? Focus on making new behaviors enjoyable. If you&rsquo;re trying to start a new behavior and you find it enjoyable, it will be easy to change and make it a habit.</p>
<h2>How Do You Make Things Enjoyable?</h2>
<p>Full length books can be devoted to answering this question, "How do you make behaviors enjoyable?" so I won&rsquo;t promise a solution here. Instead, I&rsquo;ll stick with one simple idea that I&rsquo;ve seen over and over in&nbsp;<a href="http://tinyhabits.com/">different forms</a>. Nir has&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nirandfar.com/2012/01/your-new-years-resolution-is-bound-to.html">written about this principle</a>&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;he calls it a "Minimum Enjoyable Action," MEA for short. It&rsquo;s a tried and true principle of behavior change: when you start a new habit, stick to the absolute simplest action possible. The idea is that if you start with an incredibly simple action, you can slowly add on to it to create behavior change.</p>
<p>In the words of habit blogger&nbsp;<a href="http://zenhabits.net/habitses/">Leo Babauta</a>, "Make it so easy you can&rsquo;t say no." Much of the pain and agony we experience as we try to engage new habits comes from self imposed expectations. We tell ourselves, "I have to go to the gym every day or I&rsquo;m a failure," or "If I eat one dessert, my entire fitness plan is ruined."</p>
<p>By focusing on the simplest possible action, we guarantee our success and make it much easier to progress over time. Trying to eat healthy? Start by eating one piece of lettuce. Just one. Do that every day for a week, until you feel ready to work yourself up to another piece of lettuce. Your body and mind have time to adjust, and it will be much easier to learn to enjoy your new habits instead of forcing yourself into something you simply can&rsquo;t enjoy.</p>
<p><em>This guest post was authored by&nbsp;<a href="http://bit.ly/1oJ1fAN" target="_blank">Max Ogles</a>.</em></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/daily-habits-that-make-you-smarter-2014-7" >23 Daily Habits That Will Make You Smarter</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-your-habits-wont-last-2014-7#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/why-behavior-changing-apps-dont-work-2013-7Here's Why Behavior Changing Apps Don't Workhttp://www.businessinsider.com/why-behavior-changing-apps-dont-work-2013-7
Mon, 15 Jul 2013 15:57:00 -0400Nir Eyal
<p dir="ltr">Imagine walking into a busy mall when someone approaches you with an open hand. &ldquo;Would you have some coins to take the bus, please?&rdquo; he asks. But in this case, the person is not a panhandler. The beggar is a PhD.</p>
<p dir="ltr">As part of a French study, researchers wanted to know if they could influence how much money people handed to a total stranger using just a few specially encoded words. They discovered a technique so simple and effective it doubled the amount people gave.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The turn of phrase has been shown to not only increase how much bus fare people give, but was also effective in boosting charitable donations and participation in voluntary surveys. In fact, a recent&nbsp;<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10510974.2012.727941#preview" target="_blank">meta-analysis</a>&nbsp;of 42 studies involving over 22,000 participants concluded that these few words, placed at the end of a request, are a highly-effective way to gain compliance, doubling the likelihood of people saying &ldquo;yes.&rdquo;</p>
<p dir="ltr">What were the magic words the researchers discovered? The phrase, &ldquo;but you are free to accept or refuse.&rdquo;</p>
<p dir="ltr">The &ldquo;but you are free&rdquo; technique demonstrates how we are more likely to be persuaded when our ability to choose is reaffirmed. The effect was observed not only during face-to-face interactions, but also over email. Though the research did not directly look at how products and services might use the technique, the study provides several practical insights for how companies can influence customer behavior.</p>
<h3>WANNA AND HAFTA</h3>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.etc.cmu.edu/site/people/faculty-record?fid=jschell" target="_blank">Dr. Jesse Schell</a>, of Carnegie Mellon&rsquo;s Entertainment Technology Center, studies the psychology behind why people play. In addition to being CEO of his own gaming studio, Schell has poured over decades of research to try and explain why people spend countless hours entranced playing Angry Birds or World of Warcraft while at the same time dreading doing other things, like their day jobs or filing taxes.</p>
<p dir="ltr">At this year&rsquo;s D.I.C.E Summit,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us6OPbYtKBM" target="_blank">Schell said</a>&nbsp;the difference comes down to whether the behavior is a &ldquo;wanna&rdquo; versus a &ldquo;hafta.&rdquo; The difference between things we want to do and things you have to do is, according to Schell, is &ldquo;the difference between work and play &hellip; slavery and freedom &hellip; efficiency and pleasure.&rdquo;</p>
<p dir="ltr">Furthermore, Schell believes maintaining a sense of autonomy is critical to enjoying an experience. Schell points to the work or Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, whose&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory" target="_blank">Self-Determination Theory</a>&nbsp;identifies a belief in one&rsquo;s own freedom to choose as a key requirement for sustained motivation.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Unfortunately, too many well-intentioned products fail because they feel like &ldquo;haftas,&rdquo; things people are obligated to do, as opposed to things they &ldquo;wanna&rdquo; do. Schell points to neuroscience research showing &ldquo;there are different channels in the brain for seeking positive consequences and avoiding negative consequences.&rdquo;</p>
<p dir="ltr">When faced with &ldquo;haftas,&rdquo; our brains register them as punishments so we take shortcuts, cheat, skip-out, or in the case of many apps or websites, uninstall them or click away in order to escape the discomfort of feeling controlled.</p>
<h3>WHY CHOICE WORKS</h3>
<p dir="ltr">So why does reminding people of their freedom to choose, as demonstrated in the French bus fare study, prove so effective?</p>
<p dir="ltr">The researchers believe the phrase &ldquo;but you are free&rdquo; disarms our instinctive rejection of being told what to do. If you have ever grumbled at your mother telling you to put on a coat or felt your blood pressure rise when your boss micro-manages you, you have experienced what psychologists call &ldquo;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_(psychology)" target="_blank">reactance</a>,&rdquo; the hair-trigger response to threats to our autonomy.</p>
<p dir="ltr">However, when a request is coupled with an affirmation of the right to choose, reactance is kept at bay. It appears emancipating people from seeing a behavior as a &ldquo;hafta,&rdquo; opens them to viewing it as a &ldquo;wanna.&rdquo;</p>
<p dir="ltr">But can the principles of autonomy and reactance carry-over into the way products change behavior and form new habits? Here are two examples to make the case that they do, but of course,&nbsp;<em>you are free</em>&nbsp;to make up your mind for yourself.</p>
<h3>COUNTING CALORIES</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Take for example establishing the habit of better nutrition, a common goal for many Americans. Searching in the Apple App Store for the word &ldquo;diet&rdquo; returns 3,235 apps, all promising to help users shed extra pounds. The first app in the long list is&nbsp;<a href="http://www.myfitnesspal.com/" target="_blank">MyFitnessPal</a>, whose iOS app is rated by over 350,000 people.</p>
<p dir="ltr">When I decided I needed to lose a few pounds about a year ago, I installed the app and gave it a try. MyFitnessPal is simple enough to use. The app asks dieters to log what they eat and presents them with a calories score based on their weight loss goal.</p>
<p dir="ltr">For a few days, I stuck with the program and diligently input information about everything I ate. Had I been a person who logs food with pen and paper, MyFitnessPal would have been a welcomed improvement.</p>
<p dir="ltr">However, I was not a calorie tracker prior to using MyFitnessPal and though using the app was novel at first, it soon became a drag. Keeping a food diary was not part of my daily routine and was not something I came to the app wanting to do. I wanted to lose weight and the app was telling me how to do it with its strict method of tracking calories in and calories out. Unfortunately, I soon found that forgetting to enter a meal made it impossible to get back on the program &ndash; the rest of my day was a nutritional wash.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Soon, I began to feel obligated to confess my mealtime transgressions to my phone. MyFitnessPal became MyFitnessPain. Yes, I had chosen to install the app at first, but despite my best intentions, my motivation faded and using the app became a chore. Adopting a weird new behavior, calorie tracking in my case, felt like a &ldquo;hafta&rdquo; and my only choice was to either comply with what the app wanted me to do, or quit. So I quit.</p>
<h3>MAKING FRIENDS</h3>
<p dir="ltr">On the other hand&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fitocracy.com/" target="_blank">Fitocracy</a>, another health app, approaches behavior change very differently. The goal of the app is similar to its competitors &ndash; to help people establish better diet and exercise routines. However, the app leverages familiar &ldquo;wanna&rdquo; behaviors instead of &ldquo;haftas&rdquo; to keep people on track.</p>
<p dir="ltr">At first, the Fitocracy experience is similar to other health apps, encouraging new members to track their food consumption and exercise. But where Fitocracy differentiates itself is in its recognition that most users will quickly fall off the wagon, just as I had with MyFitnessPal, unless the app taps into an existing behavior.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Before my reactance alarm went off, I started receiving kudos from other members of the site after entering-in my very first run. Curious to know who was sending the virtual encouragement, I logged-in. There, I immediately saw a question from &ldquo;mrosplock5,&rdquo; a woman looking for advice on what to do about knee pain from running. Having experienced similar trouble several years back, I left a quick reply. &ldquo;Running barefoot (or with minimalist shoes) eliminated my knee pains. Strange but true!&rdquo;</p>
<p dir="ltr">I haven&rsquo;t used Fitocracy for long, but it&rsquo;s easy to see how someone could&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nirandfar.com/2013/02/new-video-hooked-the-psychology-of-how-products-engage-us.html" target="_blank">get hooked</a>. Fitocracy is first and foremost an online community. The app roped me in by closely mimicking real-world gym jabber among friends. The ritual of connecting with like-minded people&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nirandfar.com/2013/02/designing-to-reward-our-tribal-sides.html" target="_blank">existed long before</a>&nbsp;Fitocracy and the company leverages this behavior by making sharing words of encouragement, exchanging advice, and receiving praise, easier and more rewarding. In fact,&nbsp;<a href="http://gamification-research.org/2013/07/social-aspects/" target="_blank">a recent study</a>&nbsp;in the Netherlands found social factors were the most important reasons people used the service and recommended it to others.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Social acceptance is something we all crave and Fitocracy leverages the universal need for connection as an on-ramp to fitness, making new tools and features available to users as they develop new habits. The choice for the Fitocracy user is therefore between the old way of doing an existing behavior and the company&rsquo;s tailored solution.</p>
<h3>CONCLUSION</h3>
<p dir="ltr">To be fair, MyFitnessPal does have social features intended to keep members engaged. However, as opposed to Fitocracy, the benefits of interacting with the community come much later, if ever.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Clearly, it is too early to tell who among the multitudes of health and wellness companies will emerge victorious, but the fact remains that the most successful consumer technology companies of our age, those which have altered the daily behaviors of hundreds of millions of people, are the ones nobody makes us use. Perhaps part of the appeal of sneaking in a few minutes on Facebook or checking scores on ESPN.com is access to a moment of pure autonomy &ndash; an escape from being told what to do by bosses and coworkers.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Unfortunately, too many companies build their products betting users will do what they should or have to do, instead of what they want to do. They fail to change behaviors because they neglect to make their services enjoyable for its own sake, often asking users to learn new, unfamiliar actions instead of making old routines easier.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Instead, products that successfully change behavior present users with an implicit choice between their old way of doing things and the new, more convenient solution to existing needs. By maintaining the user&rsquo;s freedom to choose, products can facilitate the adoption of new habits and change behavior for good.</p>
<h3>TL;DR</h3>
<p dir="ltr">- When our autonomy is threatened, we feel constrained by our lack of choices and often rebel against doing the new behavior. Psychologists call this &ldquo;reactance.&rdquo;</p>
<p dir="ltr">- To change behavior, products must ensure the user feels in control. People must&nbsp;<em>want to</em>&nbsp;use the service, not feel they&nbsp;<em>have to</em>.</p>
<p dir="ltr">- Attempting to create entirely new behaviors is difficult because these actions often feel like &ldquo;haftas.&rdquo; For example, unless someone already has a habit of counting calories, a diet tracking app can feel alienating, telling the user what to do and neglect to provide opportunities to get back on track if they slip-up.</p>
<p dir="ltr">- However, by making an existing behavior easier to do, a product can imply a choice more likely to be accepted. By making the existing behavior simpler and more rewarding, products give users the choice between their old way of doing things or porting their habits to the better, new solution instead.</p>
<p dir="ltr">- By catering to existing routines, products stand a better chance of changing user behavior as they move people to increasingly complex actions and new habits over time.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-behavior-changing-apps-dont-work-2013-7#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-pitfalls-of-the-network-effect-2013-6Why Even Hugely Successful Sites Have So Much Trouble Making Moneyhttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-pitfalls-of-the-network-effect-2013-6
Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:46:00 -0400Nir Eyal
<p dir="ltr">Ethan Stock lived the Silicon Valley dream. He had recently&nbsp;<a href="http://blog.ebay.com/2011/12/stubhub-acquires-zvents/" target="_blank">sold his company to eBay</a>&nbsp;and emanated the tanned skin and relaxed composure you&rsquo;d expect of someone who just cashed a big corporate check. But as we sat across from one another in a Palo Alto coffee shop, I was surprised by what he said next. &ldquo;Mediocrity is worse than failure, you know?&rdquo; For seven years before the acquisition, Stock served as the founding CEO of Zvents, an online guide for local events. Though he was successful by anyone&rsquo;s standards, I could tell he was a guy who, like me, had learned some hard lessons.</p>
<p dir="ltr">&ldquo;Zvents grew incredibly well,&rdquo; Stock told me. &ldquo;We were the largest events site of its kind, providing local listing in hundreds of markets and attracting over 14 million monthly unique visitors.&rdquo; Zvents had done what so many tech companies dream of doing, they cracked the network effect and built a business that increased in value with each new user. The more event organizers posted to the site, the more useful the site became to people looking for things to do. Both parties loved the site and Stock&rsquo;s company was in the middle, connecting visitors to events they otherwise wouldn&rsquo;t find.</p>
<p dir="ltr">&ldquo;But I learned the network effect isn&rsquo;t everything. In fact, it became a liability.&rdquo; Stock&rsquo;s words confused me. How could being in such an enviable position of creating a valuable marketplace be a bad thing? &ldquo;Getting paid was a bitch,&rdquo; Stock said, and he began to unravel how certain marketplace businesses like Zvents can succeed themselves to death.</p>
<h3>THE EXPECTATION OF COMPLETENESS</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Marketplace businesses exist to connect two or more parties, typically the buyers and the sellers. Investors love these businesses because they tend to grow quickly and spawn winner-take-all companies. A long line of successful Silicon Valley startups have found success providing a place for people to connect and transact. Examples of these kinds of companies include industry titans like eBay and LinkedIn but also include some of today&rsquo;s web darlings like Uber and AirBnB. &ldquo;Marketplace businesses are great,&rdquo; Stock told me. &ldquo;But there is a fatal flaw in some businesses that can hogtie their ability to make money &mdash; the expectation of completeness.&rdquo;</p>
<p dir="ltr">Stock explained how Zvents had planned to charge event organizers to list on their site. &ldquo;Once we reached critical mass and it was clear we were becoming the market leader, we expected event organisers would start paying.&rdquo; Unfortunately, reality fell short of expectations.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Like many marketplace businesses, Zvents was catering to users who expected to find a comprehensive listing of all local happenings. To keep users coming back, Zvents had to ensure it was displaying everyone&rsquo;s events &mdash; an incomplete list would send visitors looking elsewhere.</p>
<p dir="ltr">&ldquo;When we asked event organisers to pay up, they said &lsquo;what for?&rsquo;,&rdquo; Stock said. But threatening to remove a listing was not possible, Zvents needed them all to keep site visitors happy.</p>
<p dir="ltr">So Stock&rsquo;s team offered event organizers better ways to reach users like sponsored placements, which displayed the listing more prominently on the site. But the attempt to finally get paid largely fell flat. &ldquo;We certainly created value for them.&rdquo; Stock said. &ldquo;We were sending people to their events. We just couldn&rsquo;t capture very much of that value. I guess it&rsquo;s the old saying, &lsquo;why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free?&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<h3>JUST LIKE GOOGLE</h3>
<p dir="ltr">&ldquo;Google is similiar if you think about it.&rdquo; Stock told me. The comment surprised me given the tremendous success of the search giant juxtaposed with the Zvents story. &ldquo;They also create much more value than they capture.&rdquo;</p>
<p dir="ltr">He was right. When searching on Google, users also have an expectation of completeness. They come to the site to find all relevant results, every time. If Google decided to only display listings from paying advertisers, we&rsquo;d all switch to Bing.</p>
<p dir="ltr">When considering the collective value of all the clicks on un-sponsored links, the company does give away the vast majority of the value it creates. Indeed, Google appears to be &ldquo;giving away the milk for free.&rdquo; The difference is that Google&rsquo;s market is not limited to local happenings as was the case for Zvents. Google&rsquo;s market is much, much bigger. In fact, it&rsquo;s everything.</p>
<p dir="ltr">By organizing &ldquo;<a href="http://www.google.com/about/company/" target="_blank">the world&rsquo;s information</a>,&rdquo; Google skims a proportionally tiny amount of value from a tremendously huge marketplace. The absolute number of people who buy a sponsored placement is large enough to keep the company humming, even though it only monetizes a tiny proportion of the value created.</p>
<h3>IMPLICATIONS</h3>
<p dir="ltr">The Zvents story should give pause to marketplace businesses going after niches. The expectation of completeness, and the resulting inability to monetize, may help explain the challenges faced by companies like Foursquare, RedBeacon, and many industry-specific job listing sites.</p>
<p dir="ltr">One way around the problem of completeness is to facilitate the transaction itself. Companies like oDesk, etsy and Uber, ensure they are in the middle of the money by processing the flow of cash. It&rsquo;s much easier to justify taking a cut when you hold the gold, particularly when doing so adds convenience and security to the transaction.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Without the ability to collect a share of each transaction, marketplaces serving users who expect completeness face a difficult challenge. Two options remain: either cater to a very large market, a la Google, or monetize a large share of the value created. The network effect alone just isn&rsquo;t good enough.</p>
<h3>TL:DR</h3>
<p dir="ltr">- Network effects are great but they don&rsquo;t ensure a viable business model.</p>
<p dir="ltr">- Though they may prove successful from a growth and engagement perspective, certain marketplaces can be very difficult to monetize.</p>
<p dir="ltr">- Marketplaces where either the buyer or seller expects to choose from an exhaustive listing &ndash; so-called &ldquo;complete&rdquo; marketplaces &ndash; typically give-up far more value than they are able to capture.</p>
<p dir="ltr">- Unless they facilitate the transaction itself, these businesses often find themselves in a bind.</p>
<p dir="ltr">- Complete marketplaces must either cater to a very large market, a la Google, or position themselves to monetize a large share of the value they create.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>Follow Nir on Twitter&nbsp;<a href="http://twitter.com/nireyal" target="_blank">@nireyal</a></em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-pitfalls-of-the-network-effect-2013-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/how-companies-create-temptation-2013-5How Companies Play On Your Psychology To Tempt You Into Using Their Products http://www.businessinsider.com/how-companies-create-temptation-2013-5
Tue, 07 May 2013 15:34:28 -0400Nir Eyal
<p>How do products tempt us? What makes them so alluring? It is easy to assume we crave delicious food or impulsively check email because we find pleasure in the activity. But pleasure is just half the story.</p>
<p>Temptation is more than just the promise of reward. Recent advances in neuroscience allow us to peer into the brain, providing a greater understanding of what makes us want.</p>
<p>In 2011, Sriram Chellappan, an&nbsp;assistant professor of computer science at Missouri University of Science and Technology, gained unheard of access to sensitive information about the way undergraduates were using the Internet.<a href="http://web.mst.edu/~chellaps/papers/12_tech-soc_kcmwl.pdf" target="_blank">His study</a>&nbsp;tracked students on campus as they browsed the web. Chellappan was looking for patterns, which not only revealed what students were doing online, but provided clues about who they were.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We believe that your pattern of Internet use says something about you,&rdquo; Chellappan&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/opinion/sunday/how-depressed-people-use-the-internet.html?_r=0" target="_blank">wrote in</a>&nbsp;the <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/new-york-times">New York Times</a>. &ldquo;Specifically, our research suggests it can offer clues to your mental well-being.&rdquo; Chellappan concluded that there was, in fact, predictive power in the data. He found students with early signs of clinical depression used the Internet differently and he could identify students most likely to face mental health issues simply by looking at how they clicked.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We identified several features of Internet usage that correlated with depression,&rdquo; wrote Chellappan. &ldquo;For example, participants with depressive symptoms tended to engage in very high e-mail usage.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Chellappan developed the technology in hopes of creating an early-warning system to identify struggling students. But his study raised another question, why do people with depression check email more?</p>
<p><strong>Alleviating Pain&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p>The answer may provide clues about why all of us use the products and services we do in our everyday lives. Psychologists believe people with depression feel negative emotions, like anxiety, more frequently than other people do. There is evidence that the depressed students in Chellappan&rsquo;s study were using the Internet more because they experience negative mental states more often. To try and feel better, they turned to the web to boost their mood.</p>
<p>Finding ways to make ourselves feel better is not something only depressives do. We all seek relief from feeling bad and the brain is primed to help us learn where we can find escape. Just as we might take a Tylenol to relieve a headache, we turn to products to relieve emotional pain. In fact, these two biological processes are so closely linked that taking a Tylenol has&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20548058" target="_blank">been shown</a>&nbsp;to ease both physical and emotional pain. The drug is effective in treating headache and heartache.</p>
<p>Having a pain to cure is a necessary prerequisite to using products. Recent neuroscience reveals the brain even adds pain to things that were previously pleasurable to push us to get what our bodies want. When temptation is activated in the brain, it induces a biological process that not only turns on the pleasure response, but also the body&rsquo;s physiological stress response.</p>
<p>Consider a 2005&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16038770" target="_blank">study</a>&nbsp;which looked at the physiological response of women exposed to images of chocolate. Researchers observed that the women experienced a subconscious reaction of alarm similar to seeing a threatening animal in the wild. The women, who had identified themselves as &ldquo;chocolate cravers,&rdquo; described feeling not only pleasure at the thought of consuming the chocolate, but also agitation, angst, and a feeling of a loss of control in the face of their desire. For these women&rsquo;s brains, temptation was stressful.</p>
<p>Since the 1950s, researchers have explored how the brain&rsquo;s reward system compels behavior. Our understanding of the complex circuitry shows that pleasure and pain work together. Once the brain learns something good is about to happen, it induces a craving we feel as stress. The fastest relief from this discomfort is to get what we want.</p>
<p><strong>Exaggeration and Fear</strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Companies, of course, are masters of temptation. If marketing is&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing" target="_blank">defined</a>&nbsp;as, &ldquo;the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers,&rdquo; then implicit in this practice is accentuating the positive aspects of what being sold. This technique is used not only in hawking goods, but is also found in nature. Animals have been tricking each other by accentuating desirable traits for millennia. The process is called &ldquo;super-normal stimuli&rdquo; and it is a key to<a href="http://www.nirandfar.com/2013/01/how-technology-is-like-bug-sex.html" target="_blank">enticing action</a>&nbsp;by creating the stress of desire.</p>
<p>Another way products induce intense desire is through a certain kind of fear, particularly our innate need to have as much as the next person. The phenomenon is exhibited with a simple experiment conducted by Frans de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University.</p>
<p>In the study, de Waal rewarded two capuchin monkeys with a cucumber when they completed a simple task, in this case, handing a rock to the researcher. When both monkeys were given the same reward, they completed the task as prescribed.</p>
<p>But when the researcher gave one monkey a grape while offering the other the standard cucumber,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg" target="_blank">the results</a>&nbsp;were very different. The stiffed monkey, who was perfectly content just seconds before with his cucumber, began shrieking, baring his teeth, thrashing in his cage, and pounding on the table to show his anger. Known in the vernacular as FOMO, or &ldquo;fear of missing out&rdquo;, marketers utilize this inborn trigger to incite pain akin to what the capuchin monkey felt in de Waals cage.</p>
<p>Marketers tasked with increasing consumption of their company&rsquo;s products have a difficult job; they are often charged with&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nirandfar.com/2012/03/how-to-manufacture-desire.html" target="_blank">manufacturing desire</a>. To do that, they need to find the customer&rsquo;s problem, their pain, in order to alleviate it. Without the biological basis spurring our desire, there would be no sales. So marketers must at least accentuate, if not induce, a level of discomfort to make us crave their wares.</p>
<p>Like in the undergraduates in Chellappan&rsquo;s study exhibiting signs of depression, we all seek to escape feeling bad. The products and services that provide immediate relief are those we come to depend upon most.</p>
<p>Now Read: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-world-is-becoming-more-addictive-2013-4">The World Is Becoming A More Addictive Place</a>&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-companies-create-temptation-2013-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/good-versus-bad-growth-2013-4There's An Important Difference Between Good And Bad Growthhttp://www.businessinsider.com/good-versus-bad-growth-2013-4
Wed, 03 Apr 2013 14:06:58 -0400Nir Eyal
<p>Recently, MessageMe&nbsp;<a href="http://blog.messageme.com/post/45752247883/announcing-our-seed-investors" target="_blank">announced</a>&nbsp;it had grown to 1 million users in a little over a week&rsquo;s time. The revelation captured the attention of envious app makers throughout Silicon Valley, all of whom are searching for the secrets of customer acquisition like it&rsquo;s the fountain of youth. &ldquo;Growth hacking&rdquo; has become the latest buzzword, as investors like Paul Graham profess it&rsquo;s functionally&nbsp;<a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html" target="_blank">that matters</a>.</p>
<p>Clearly, everyone wants growth. To someone creating a new technology, nothing feels better than people actually using what you&rsquo;ve built and telling their friends. Growth feels validating. It tells everyone the company is doing things right. At least that&rsquo;s what we want to believe.</p>
<p><strong>Good Growth, Bad Growth</strong></p>
<p>Sometimes viral loops drive growth, because the product is truly awesome, while in other cases growth occurs for, well, different reasons. As an example of good growth, it&rsquo;s hard to top PayPal&rsquo;s viral success in the late 90s. <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/paypal">PayPal</a> knew that once users started sending money to each other, mostly for stuff bought on <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/ebay">eBay</a>, they would infect one another. The allure that someone just &ldquo;sent you money&rdquo; was a huge incentive to register.</p>
<p>PayPal nailed virality. Both sides of the transaction benefited from utilizing the platform and a classic network-effects business was born. In order for users to get what they wanted, they had to open an account and the product spread because it was useful and viral.</p>
<p>However, sometimes viral loops are less about the customer&rsquo;s interests and more about short-term greed. When the product maker intentionally tricks users into inviting friends or blasting social networks, they may see growth, but it comes at the expense of goodwill and trust. When people discover they&rsquo;ve been tricked, they vent their hatred and stop using the product. Unfortunately, we&rsquo;ve all encountered the ways companies drive growth in deceptive ways known as &ldquo;<a href="http://darkpatterns.org/" target="_blank">dark patterns</a>.&rdquo;</p>
<p><strong>Viral Oops&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p>Good and bad growth is relatively easy to identify. What is harder to decipher is the gray zone in between. A &ldquo;viral oops&rdquo; occurs when users unintentionally invite others, but when they look back on what happened, they blame themselves, not the app.</p>
<p>When MessageMe pre-selects everyone in my contact list as a default, I&rsquo;m likely to think that only those who are un-checked will be invited. However, the opposite is true. With two taps, my list of hundreds of contacts gets swamped with a notification email personalized from my email account.</p>
<p><img src="http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/messageme-selected-all.png?w=207&amp;maxX=207&amp;maxY=300" border="0" alt="messageme selected all" width="207" height="300" /><img src="http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/messageme-invite.png?w=204" border="0" alt="MessageMe invite" width="204" height="300" /></p>
<p>Could users really make such a mistake? After all, the send button is clearly labeled with the number of people who will be invited. I am also well aware of the convention that a check mark means the contact is selected and not the other way around.</p>
<p>However, say I was not in UX businesses? What if I were a tech novice living outside our little Silicon Valley bubble? What if I were slightly far-sighted? Or perhaps if English were not my first language (it isn&rsquo;t)? Or maybe if I were attempting to make a quick decision while outdoors and couldn&rsquo;t clearly see my dim screen? In any one of these scenarios, I could have easily triggered a viral oops.</p>
<p>The surprising math of viral growth reveals it doesn&rsquo;t take many users to make this kind of mistake. Only 5 percent of users screwing up can get an app to a million downloads in two weeks, assuming the average user has 200 people in their contact list. The assumptions are for illustrative purposes (see note at bottom) but the point here is to show how powerful exponential growth can be, whether or not it is intentional.</p>
<p><strong>Who Really Get's Tricked?&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p>Admittedly, a careful review of the interface would reveal the user&rsquo;s mistake. It&rsquo;s hard to fault MessageMe. Though my requests for an interview were not returned, I assume their intent was not to trick anyone.</p>
<p>However, the example illustrates what makes the viral oops so troublesome. It is impossible to look into the minds of customers while they use an app. For all I know, MessageMe users intend to send the app to every single one of their contacts. But how would the app maker know if it was done in error? They wouldn&rsquo;t.</p>
<p><strong>A Viral Oops Not Only Deceives The User, It Fools The Developer&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p>Unlike an intentionally deceptive technique, where the user gets angry and stops using the product or uninstalls the app, with a viral oops, users blame themselves. They&rsquo;ll most likely keep the app and move on with life. With no metric indicating the user&rsquo;s unintended mistake, the app maker is none the wiser.</p>
<p>A viral oops not only deceives the user, it fools the developer. There is no way to know if the invite was sent in error. Without an understanding of why users share the app, developers are liable to gloss over significant shortcomings that must be addressed for the app to achieve long-term success. Given how easy it is for us fallible humans to believe convenient truths, it is too enticing to interpret growth as validation instead of a mirage.</p>
<p>MessageMe just happens to be the latest hyper-growth app making headlines; I could have picked any number of other cases. In researching this article, I discovered multiple examples of the viral oops in companies large and small, and I&rsquo;m sure the comments section will uncover others.</p>
<p>Developers should make sure they know&nbsp;<em>why</em>&nbsp;people are sending invitations to others and not be guided by growth for its own sake. App makers would be wise to be particularly careful in encouraging people to invite others before users really know how the app works. For example, prompting invites at first login is a remarkably common and potentially specious practice.</p>
<p>For creative people working on exciting new technologies, growth feels great. But we should be cautious of using techniques that have a high likelihood of being viral oops instead of viral loops.</p>
<p>&ndash;</p>
<p><em>Note: The virality math assumes a starting base of 1,000 users and a daily cycle time of 1 with a 10% invitation acceptance rate.</em></p>
<p><em>Thanks to&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/JulesMaltz" target="_blank">Jules Maltz</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/maxogles" target="_blank">Max Ogles</a>&nbsp;for reading previous versions of this essay.</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/good-versus-bad-growth-2013-4#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/why-we-use-social-media-to-fit-in-2013-2Our Innate Desire To Be Part Of A Tribe Is Why We Love Facebook http://www.businessinsider.com/why-we-use-social-media-to-fit-in-2013-2
Wed, 13 Feb 2013 11:51:00 -0500Nir Eyal
<p>We are a species that depend on one another. Scientists theorize humans have specially adapted&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron" target="_blank">neurons</a>&nbsp;that help us feel what others feel, providing evidence that we survive through our empathy for others. We&rsquo;re meant to be part of a tribe and our brains seek out rewards that make us feel accepted, important, attractive, and included.</p>
<p>Many of our institutions and industries are built around this need for social reinforcement. From civic and religious groups to spectator sports, the need to feel social connectedness informs our values and drives much of how we spend our time. Communication technology in particular has given rise to a long history of companies that have provided better ways of delivering what I call, &ldquo;rewards of the tribe.&rdquo;</p>
<p>However, it&rsquo;s not only the reward we seek. Variability also keeps us engaged. From the telegraph to email, products that connect us are highly valued, but those that invoke an element of surprise are even more so. Recently, the explosion of Web technologies that cater to our insatiable search for validation provide clear examples of the tremendous appeal of the promise of social reward.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/stack-overflow" class="hidden_link">Stack Overflow</a></strong></p>
<p>The endless search for rewards of the tribe, and the variability that often comes with it, are key components of the Web&rsquo;s largest technical question and answer site,&nbsp;<a href="http://stackoverflow.com/" target="_blank">Stack Overflow</a>. As with other user-generated sites like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/quora" class="hidden_link">Quora</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/wikipedia" class="hidden_link">Wikipedia</a>, and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/youtube" class="hidden_link">YouTube</a>, all of Stack Overflow&rsquo;s content&nbsp;is created voluntarily by its members. In Stack Overflow&rsquo;s case, over 5,000 questions are posted and answered daily, all of which cost nothing to view. Many of these answers take hours to complete and require a high degree of technical expertise.</p>
<p>Despite having to take time away from their work and family lives to add new content to the site, some users are so enamored answering questions that the site&rsquo;s creators had to put usage limitations in place for fear of creating exploitative addictions. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/jeff-atwood" class="hidden_link">Jeff Atwood</a>, a co-founder of the company, told me about a man with a full-time job and an autistic child at home who frequently reached the maximum allowable time on the system despite his many other seemingly more important commitments.</p>
<p>The question of course is &ldquo;why?&rdquo; Why do so many people voluntarily spend so much time creating free content on sites like Stack Overflow when they could spend their time elsewhere? According to Atwood, part of the reason is the &ldquo;social reward of doing something other people find important.&rdquo;</p>
<p>To make the reward more tangible, the company implemented a points system with an elaborate mechanism for earning certain rights on the site. Users in the top tiers of accrued points literally run the site. Top contributors have editing privileges and can even ban other users. However, collecting points is not just another game mechanic, the points confer special value.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What makes the points valuable,&rdquo; Atwood says, &ldquo;is that they are earned as a proxy of the value created for other users. They embody peer status.&rdquo; The points system on Stack Overflow is an example of a variable reward of the tribe. Contributors are uncertain of how many points they will accrue by answering a question. The only way to find out is to write the best possible response and hope the community values your contribution.</p>
<p>Points give people real power on the site, but that status is only attained through a meritocratic process that determines who is most valued by the community. The search for rewards of the tribe is driven by status given not from an arbitrary algorithm intended to control the user, but from other users of the site. The distinction is critically important. Reputational status conferred by the community has real value, while badges or points given by a machine have only temporary benefits.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/distraction-on-the-internet-2013-1" >How To Resist The Internet's Incredible Power To Distract</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-we-use-social-media-to-fit-in-2013-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/distraction-on-the-internet-2013-1How To Resist The Internet's Incredible Power To Distracthttp://www.businessinsider.com/distraction-on-the-internet-2013-1
Wed, 23 Jan 2013 16:26:00 -0500Nir Eyal
<p>If the Internet had a voice, I am fairly certain it would sound like the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8N72t7aScY&amp;list=PL60FCAE3E6D32BF33" target="_blank">HAL 9000</a>&nbsp;from "2001: A Space Odyssey."</p>
<p>&ldquo;Hello Nir,&rdquo; it said to me in its low, monotone voice. &ldquo;Glad to see you again.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Internet, I just need a few quick things for an article I&rsquo;m writing,&rdquo; I&rsquo;d reply. &ldquo;Then it&rsquo;s back to work. No distractions this time.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Of course Nir, but while you are here, won&rsquo;t you look at what Paul Graham just wrote?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No Internet,&rdquo; I&rsquo;d resist. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just here to find some specific information, I can&rsquo;t be distracted.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Of course Nir,&rdquo; the Internet would say. &ldquo;But this article about&nbsp;<a href="http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/08/ff_cats/2/?pid=7872&amp;viewall=true" target="_blank">LOLCats addiction</a>&nbsp;is related to your work. Give it a click, won&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Interesting.&rdquo; I&rsquo;d say hesitantly. &ldquo;Just a quick read and then it&rsquo;s back to work.&rdquo;</p>
<p>3 hours later I would realize the time I&rsquo;d wasted clicking and curse the Internet for sucking me into its mind vortex yet again.</p>
<p>Ironically, I research and write about seductive technology and yet I struggle to resist its temptations. Much of&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nirandfar.com/past-articles-and-resources" target="_blank">my work</a>&nbsp;is written for entrepreneurs and designers looking for ways to boost user engagement with their products. The rest of my writing is intended to increase awareness of the habit-forming potential, and at times, unintended consequences, of an increasingly connected world.</p>
<p>But just as having an understanding of how illicit drugs work does not necessarily prevent addiction, I find myself just as susceptible to the illusive pull of the Web. I&rsquo;ve written about methods for preventing unwanted tech intrusion in the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nirandfar.com/2012/12/we-need-a-digital-hat-rack-2.html" target="_blank">boardroom</a>&nbsp;and even the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nirandfar.com/2012/05/strange-sex-habits-of-silicon-valley.html" target="_blank">bedroom</a>, but I found myself struggling with distractions at the desktop, making it difficult to achieve the concentration I needed to work. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/indeed" class="hidden_link">Indeed</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.futurity.org/top-stories/3-second-distraction-doubles-work-errors/" target="_blank">research</a>&nbsp;suggests even small interruptions increase mistakes and degrade performance.</p>
<p>For knowledge workers like me, our work and play display on the same screens. Computers and phones allow us to do our jobs, but also give us instantaneous access to boredom-reliving&nbsp; entertainment. In fact, most of the top&nbsp;<a href="http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/US" target="_blank">25 website in America</a>&nbsp;sell escape from our daily drudgery.</p>
<p>Online content is habit-forming because it follows what I call the &ldquo;<a href="http://www.nirandfar.com/2012/03/how-to-manufacture-desire.html" target="_blank">hook framework</a>&ldquo;, a four-step user flow composed of a trigger, action, reward, and investment. To end my own bad habit of spending too much time wandering the Web, I had to break the hook, ensuring I didn&rsquo;t pass through its four alluring steps.</p>
<p><strong>The No Read Rule</strong></p>
<p>Fortunately, I found my antidote in the venom. Ironically, the sites that syndicate my essays &mdash; perhaps where you are reading this right now &mdash; depend on you not doing what I did, hoping you&rsquo;ll continue clicking from article to article, racking-up their ad revenue. But to end my own habit, I strung together several technologies to end the behavior pattern that kept me chasing intriguing headlines.</p>
<p>The first thing I did was set a new rule for how I consume content. My rule is to never read online. Of course, I still need to read things I find on the Web, I&rsquo;ve just time-shifted how I do it.</p>
<p>I signed up for&nbsp;<a href="http://getpocket.com/" target="_blank">Pocket</a>&nbsp;and installed their&nbsp;<a href="http://getpocket.com/add/" target="_blank">browser extension</a>. When clicked, Pocket scrubs the text of what I&rsquo;d like to read and saves it for later. I made sure the Pocket button is conspicuously visible on my web browser to act as a reminder of my &ldquo;never read online&rdquo; rule.</p>
<p>I replaced my old action of reading essays with the new action of saving them for later. Thus, my temptation to digest the content wasn&rsquo;t thwarted, it was satisfied knowing it was safe and sound, waiting for me until later.</p>
<p><strong>Content as Reward</strong></p>
<p>Next, I used the Pocket&nbsp;<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideashower.readitlater.pro&amp;hl=en" target="_blank">Android app</a>&nbsp;to provide access to the content at just the right time. But here&rsquo;s the kicker, I do not do the reading. I let the app read it to me.</p>
<p>The app&rsquo;s text-to-speech capabilities are astounding and the HAL 9000 voice of the Internet has been replaced by a British chap with a cheery disposition.&nbsp;Unfortunately,&nbsp;as far as I can tell, the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/apple" class="hidden_link">Apple</a> iOS version does not have text-to-speech but on my <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/android" class="hidden_link">Android</a> the audio plays commercial-free while I&rsquo;m working out or driving.&nbsp;Listening this way also has some surprising benefits.</p>
<p>I&rsquo;ve discovered that checking-off articles from my queue&nbsp;is decidedly satisfying, similar to the tiny pleasure of clearing unread messages from my email inbox. Getting through my list of articles acts as a small reward encouraging me to hit the gym more often and saving me the time and temptation of reading at my desk.</p>
<p><strong>The IFTTT Stitch</strong></p>
<p>However, reading at my desk had perks which at first I found lacking in Pocket. For example, I often saved articles to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/evernote" class="hidden_link">Evernote</a> or shared to social networks like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/twitter" class="hidden_link">Twitter</a>, but doing so at the gym required too many time-wasting steps. To solve this dilemma, I recruited another brilliant technology.&nbsp;<a href="https://ifttt.com/" target="_blank">IFTTT</a>, short for&nbsp;IF This Then That, stitches together dozens of apps to communicate easily together. For example, every time I mark an article as a &ldquo;favorite&rdquo; in Pocket, it instantly saves to my Evernote account. The IFTTT recipe is&nbsp;<a href="https://ifttt.com/recipes/75046" target="_blank">available here.</a>&nbsp;When I&rsquo;d like to share an article I&rsquo;ve just heard to any number of social networks, all I do is send it to&nbsp;<a href="http://bufferapp.com/" target="_blank">Buffer</a>, which concurrently fires off another&nbsp;<a href="https://ifttt.com/recipes/75047" target="_blank">IFTTT recipe</a>.</p>
<p><strong>De-Triggered</strong></p>
<p>This simple solution involved no coding and I&rsquo;m sure you can think of ways to customize these tools for your own needs. My hack is one method for conquering the seductive draw of reading &ldquo;just one more thing.&rdquo; On the Web, where distractions and temptations are boundless, we need new tools to help us do our best work. By replacing my previous actions with a more thoughtful behavior, I&rsquo;ve increased my productivity and kept HAL&rsquo;s seductive call at bay.</p>
<p><em>Disclosures:&nbsp; As of the time of publication, I have no financial or personal interests in any of the companies mentioned in this essay.</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/distraction-on-the-internet-2013-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p>